Fitesa confirms growth plan

Company will add 50,000 tons of spunmelt capacity globally.

10.09.13

Brazilian nonwovens maker Fitesa has confirmed it will add a total of 50,000 tons of new capacity to support its customers’ growth in the hygiene market. The unspecified new investments will include state-of-the-art spunmelt lines in the U.S. starting up in the third quarter of 2014 as well as new projects scheduled for 2014 and 2015 to expand capacity and serve customer growth in Eastern and Western Europe.

Fitesa catapulted itself to a spot among the world’s top nonwovens producers in 2011 when it purchased the hygiene-related businesses of Fiberweb and has already demonstrated its ability to fund and execute organic growth with incremental capacity expansions in the U.S. in 2011, Brazil and Peru in 2012, the U.S. in 2013 and China in 2014.

Last month, Fitesa announced the commercial availability of 100% biobased spunbond performance nonwoven materials for hygiene and personal care applications developed through a joint with Braskem and NatureWorks